Bringing more new yarn into the world

I finished plying up the last of the Gotland fiber from a yearling sheep named Ruby. This yarn could have been better if I was less inexperienced. But it is what it is.

Here is the story with this yarn: I filled the first bobbin with the same drafting method I had been using before: long backwards draft (which makes woolen-spun yarn).

Then I realized that the fiber had a nice luster to it. And the best way to preserve that luster in the finished yarn is with a short forward draft (to make worsted-spun yarn).

I proceeded to fill up the other four bobbins with short forward draft. I had to admit, the singles looked pretty nice.

When it came time to ply I thought, “Aw, no one will be able to tell if I ply the woolen-spun single with two worsted-spun singles.”

But I was wrong.

You can totally tell.

Oh well… lesson learned.

This batch of yarn totals 524 yards/263 grams. And with this latest addition, I am officially Out Of Room For Yarn.

I scaled down my yarn storage a few months ago, and I am totally at capacity now. In fact, maybe a little bit over capacity. After trying to cram these new skeins in, I gave up in frustration and set them on the coffee table to “deal with them later.”

(There are a lot of things lying around here for me to “deal with later.”)

Therefore, I’m going to dedicate my crafting time this week to finishing that cross stitch project. Hopefully I can knit myself out of this stash dilemma within a week or two!

And Cinammon leaves them alone on the coffee table? Wow. Pumpkin would be all over it in a heartbeat. Last night he felt cheated out of sharing in the yarn fun and tried to teach himself how to unzip the project bag. I took it away from him before he figured it out. This is the same cat who figured out how to open the deadbolt when he wanted to go outside. And BTW, pretty yarn!